With continuing government ambivalence, the DRDO and PSUs want to start from scratch not because they do not realise values of technology-reconfiguration-reverse engineering but simply because more money can be made in adopting the former.

The West says China is not amongst the world’s top ten defence exporters even while being the second biggest military spender in the world. This is attributed to sanctions post the Tiananmen Square massacre and poor Chinese technology. It apparently discounts China fooling the world akin to her colossal unofficial defence budget albeit these statistics do not include costs of sale of nuclear technology to North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Silkworm missiles to Saudi Arabia, ring magnets to Pakistan and the like.

China is innately focused on technology acquisition and couldn’t care how. She has begun capitalising on her growing foreign policy reach into new markets offering low priced products like J-10 and JF-17 fighters, missiles, radars, communication equipment, etc. There have been instances of financial gains inducing European firms circumventing sanctions in providing new technologies to China through technology transfer or joint ventures on Chinese soil.

Defence platforms like multipurpose helicopters are finding their way into China under commercial sector cover. China is leapfrogging technology regimes at a tremendous pace employing every possible means with complete disregard to international propriety and established rules including intellectual property rights. She has already achieved sixth position in global innovativeness in 2009.

Spying, cloning, reverse engineering are institutionalised through a road map with blessings of the Chinese hierarchy and every opportunity is optimised. Unexploded US cruise missiles that Osama bin Laden eluded in Afghanistan were carted away by China. Remains of the MH-60M Black Hawk stealth helicopter crashed during the US raid in Abbottabad were examined by the Chinese.

The latest catch has been the US RQ-170 stealth UAV downed by Iran, access to which would have surely been given to China. China has stolen US stealth technologies not only through cyber attacking US defence firms but even successfully penetrating the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Employing hundreds of Russian scientists post-breakup of Soviet Union, China used reverse engineering to fill technical gaps and improve upon Soviet designs.

Spying, snooping, reverse engineering has given China designs of the US F-16, B1 Bomber, US Navy’s quiet electric drive, US W-88 miniaturized Nuke (used in Trident Missiles) to name a few. China aims parity with the United States in science and technology in three decades plus. The J-20 stealth fighter has been developed in record time. Stealth helicopters and vessels should be following. The indigenous aircraft carrier under development is estimated to be twice as fast with double the capacity of launching and landing capabilities through twin decks.

All this will give China a tremendous boost in defence exports aside from a modernised PLA. What India needs to learn from China is optimising technology reconfiguration wherein available technology is integrated in multitude of combinations to attain self-reliance. Technologies notwithstanding, base level equipping of PLA (Army, Navy, Air Force) is almost completely indigenised.

In contrast, we took 15 years to develop an assault rifle which still has numerous faults and today our Army is forced to import some 44,000 carbines and 66,000 assault rifles while the DRDO spends lakhs of rupees in selfaggrandisement through advertisements for having developed mosquito repellent and skin ointment for Leucoderma – shameful state for a country with the third largest army in the world. The latest media blitz of DRDO developing NBC warfare equipment capitalises on the citizenry’s ignorance that the army had imported such equipment over three decades back. With continuing government ambivalence, the DRDO and PSUs want to start from scratch not because they do not realise values of technology-reconfiguration-reverse engineering but simply because more money can be made in adopting the former. So why care about technology any which way?

The views expressed herein are the personal views of the author.